


yours

by keyshrine



Series: you inspired me [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, cat gets kidnapped by angry aunt astra, on tonight's episode of keeping up with the kryptonians...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5762074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyshrine/pseuds/keyshrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Aster—“</p><p>“Astra.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“My name,” the woman begins slowly, like she's speaking to a child, “Is Astra.”</p><p>“Mmhm. That's what I said, isn't it?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	yours

**Author's Note:**

> i love astra and i love cat and i want them to meet in canon. the end.
> 
> this was going to be a non-supercat story and then somehow it turned into a third part of this loosely connected series so.

“Aster—“

“Astra.”

“What?” Cat blinks, glances up-and-up-and-up at the woman standing over her. She looks vaguely like she wants to kill everything in sight. Including Cat, and that's not a fact that Cat's very comfortable with at all. Not in the slightest, in fact. Not even the tiniest bit.

“My name,” the woman begins slowly, like she's speaking to a child, lowering herself down to Cat's level. Cat's level is only a level at all because she's chained to the floor and the highest she can get is kneeling in a little awkward half-crouch. The chains are too short for her to stand, and clank against each other annoyingly whenever she so much as twitches a hand, “Is Astra.”

“Mmhm. That's what I said, isn't it?”

Astra narrows her eyes. “You called me _Aster,_ " she says, twists the name in her mouth like it's a curse word.

Cat tries to raise a hand to wave it dismissively through the air and then remembers: oh, right. She's chained up, in some dark room. The floor is cold and hard underneath her, she _desperately_ needs to go to the bathroom, something keeps dripping overhead making little _tap-tap-tap_ noises every few seconds and it is absolutely _infuriating,_ she's freezing, her hands are shaking as a result of being freezing, and her kidnapper...well, her kidnapper isn't the nicest woman on Earth, that's for sure. “Aster, Astra,” she drawls through her chattering teeth, “It's the same thing. Or close enough, at least. Oh, and now I've lost my train of thought. _Wonderful._ ”

Astra stands, gives her a dismissive look, and continues to pace. Oh, yes, and there's that. The pacing. It's almost as irritating as the dripping but not quite. Still. Close enough. “Are you cold, human?” Astra asks after a few minutes have passed, staring down at her with a look on her face that suggests Cat is worth no more than a bug squished on the bottom of her heel and that's... _annoying._ Cat is usually the one looking at people with that look on her face.

It usually isn't this unpleasant being on the wrong side of that look, either, because there's only a single person whose opinion on her actually matters to her and that's her son, and he's never once looked at her like that. Still, there's something about Astra that is all around unpleasant and that includes the way she looks at Cat.

Cat clenches her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering further, but gives up eventually. “Just a bit,” she says with a roll of her eyes, tipping her head back to rest it on the relatively clean wall. It's not quite a dungeon, not quite a cell or some sort of makeshift prison. It's just a dark, cold, empty room. Empty space. In truth, she has no idea what it is or where she is, because she'd just woken up in this very corner with a horribly dry mouth and a head that pounded painfully every time she heard anything at all. Both of those symptoms of being knocked out and kidnapped had been reduced slightly, fortunately, but now she was cold. And her nose was running as a direct result of that. _Ugh._

Astra throws a blanket at her. Quite literally. She tosses it, and it lands sprawled messily in Cat's lap. She stares at Astra, squinting, and then down at the blanket; wriggles a little to try and adjust it, and when that doesn't work she tries to reach for it, but the chains keep her from it.

So; neither of those things work, and she pulls a leg back a bit, taking the blanket with it, and snatches up the corner of the blanket in a hand. She pauses when she realizes that she's just made things worse for herself, because now the blanket isn't even covering her lap. Cat closes her eyes and takes in a long, deep breath, and decides that this is probably as good as it's going to get. “Thank you,” she chimes and if Astra notes the sarcasm in her voice, tangled and weighing down around every syllable, the woman doesn't acknowledge it; she just starts up her pacing again, but it stutters midway the second time around the room.

Astra stills, there, staring ahead at nothing like she's thinking. “Where is she?"

"Where's who?” Cat asks, plays innocent.

Astra's head snaps around, and she stares at her for a moment. “ _Supergirl._ " Her voice thrums with anger, barely contained.

Cat can sympathize, really. She was angry like that for the first two hours, and then during the third she'd given up trying to negotiate, and then during the fifth hour she'd stopped trying to get an exclusive or, rather, any information at all on the woman who was holding her captive, and now she was sitting here, freezing and worrying on and off about Carter and Supergirl.

That was why Cat was here, after all; she was being used as a lure. Bait. A trap. But Supergirl hadn't arrived yet. Which was worrying and annoying in equal halves.

She rolls a shoulder in a shrug. “Why do you think she'd care about a single _human_ like me?” she asks passively. Astra stares at her in a way that suggests she thinks the question is stupid, and that Cat is stupid for even thinking of it, much less actually going ahead and asking it. Cat sighs. “Could you _at least_ remove these— _damn_ shackles? Honestly, I'd be surprised if this situation got any more stereotypical than it already is— _shackles,_ really...”

Astra doesn't respond, and doesn't move closer. She turns away dismissively, instead, and Cat sighs again, loudly, into the silence and leans her head back against the wall again, closing her eyes.

She tries to count the minutes that pass, then, for lack of anything better to do, but she loses track at one-hundred and nineteen seconds and then gives up, and then the chains are suddenly jingling again, and then her hands are free.

Her eyes snap open. Astra is standing in the same place as before, watching her. Carefully, Cat pulls her hands forward, rests them in her lap, rubs her wrist with a kind of relief. The shackles are piled on the ground. “Wonderful. Now, was that so hard?”

That's the wrong thing to say, and she knows it immediately, but Astra only shoots her a look of warning and then, of course, goes back to pacing.

Cat takes the opportunity to stand and stretch her legs. They're wobbly, at first, and she nearly falls right back down again, but she uses the wall as a crutch and waits until she can stand straight without tripping over herself.

“Sit back down,” Astra orders.

Cat sighs. For the umpteenth time. “Really? Do I _look_ like I'm going to do anything? Do I even look _capable_ of it at all?“

“Sit back down,” Astra repeats, a dangerous quietude to her voice, and Cat obeys like a dog with its leash pulled, somewhat sullenly. She slides down the wall where she'd been before, stretches her legs out in front of her and gives Astra a look.

“Happy?”

Astra replies, dully, “Ecstatic.”

Cat snorts. “Oh, the scary alien has a sense of humor.” Astra stares at her with a look in her eyes that suggests she'd very much like to snap Cat's neck. “Mm. Fine, fine. Maybe not.”

“Where is she?” Astra asks again, asks the air around them, voice drawn taut like a string about to snap.

Cat rolls her eyes. “ _Honestly._ I don't have some sort of ability that tells me where Supergirl is at every single second of every single day, you know." Although, she adds inwardly, it would certainly help her and CatCo quite a bit if she did. In fact, having that sort of ability sounded rather useful now that she was thinking about it at any actual length—

“Be quiet. I was not speaking to you.”

“Mmhm,” Cat hums half-heartedly, waves a hand in Astra's direction. They sit in silence for a few more minutes, and then Cat's stomach growls.

She freezes.

Her stomach knows better than to growl. No: that sounds ridiculous, put that way. It's more like she has trained herself to resist thinking about food or salivating over it, and her stomach certainly doesn't _growl,_ no matter how starving she might be. In all honesty, however, she could go for a burger. And fries. And a Diet Coke. Not that she made a habit of drinking soda. It was bad for the teeth. The burger and fries idea, however, didn't seem at all promising seeing as she was being held captive by someone who probably didn't even know what a burger was.

Astra's staring at her, eyes narrowed.

Cat rolls her eyes again, this time so hard that it actually hurts her head, briefly, “I can't control the noises my stomach makes when I'm starving to death in the care or lack thereof of an alien who has absolutely _no_ business kidnapping me,” she snaps irritably.

Astra stares at her a little longer and then exits the room. She slams the door behind her with a particular sort of strength that rattles the walls around Cat, loudly, suddenly, like a child. A big, grown-up alien who's very intimidating but slams doors like a child.

Cat thinks, very very briefly, of leaving. (Escaping has too much of an unnecessarily dramatic tone to it for her taste). And then it occurs to her that she probably wouldn't get three feet out of the door without being herded back into this cold, dark room, and attempting to would just get her back in those shackles again and that wasn't something that appealed to her.

And if she was lucky, Astra had left to get her a burger.

So: she stays put.

She stays put, and is cold, no matter how she wraps the blanket around her. It's a thin blanket, not at all what she's used to, and gives her hardly any warmth at all. She stays put, she's cold, and she falls asleep—slowly, gently, eyes fluttering shut despite her attempts to keep them open.

She's certain she's only slept for no more than a half hour before the door opens again, so quickly that it slams into the wall behind it with a resounding thud that resonates through her skull.

And then Astra flies in. Quite literally flies. Or, rather, she's _sent_ flying—a blur of black across the room, colliding hard with the wall furthest away from Cat. It shakes the whole room, and yet there's no collapsing of ceiling and wall—just a little dust shaken from the ceiling. Cat swears idly in the back of her head that this room is the absolute sturdiest she's ever been in.

Watching two Kryptonians fight it out for her freedom or lack thereof would be interesting if she weren't so tired and hungry and cold all at the same time, so instead it's just vaguely intriguing to her, and it doesn't even occur to her to tape the whole thing on her phone until after the fight's almost done and Astra is backed up against the wall by Supergirl.

“Leave her alone, Astra,” the hero says softly, a little dangerously, “She is not a part of any of this. You do not _kidnap_ her to draw me out.”

Astra smiles. “You would not have come, otherwise.”

Supergirl stares at her. “Why are you doing this?” Something in her voice is tired. Cat barely notices it beyond her own exhaustion, but she does—she notices everything.

Astra tilts her head a little, just slightly, like she doesn't know what Supergirl is talking about.

Supergirl repeats herself, voice higher, a little less controlled, “Why?”

Astra speaks, but it's in no language that Cat understands—really, it just sounds like gibberish, but when she looks at Supergirl something on the girl's face is pained, like whatever Astra is saying is hurting her so badly that it's manifested in some odd, semi-physical form.

Astra's still speaking in that language when Supergirl pulls her arm back, the other pressed against Astra's throat, keeping her to the wall—there's a moment where Astra's face turns surprised but Cat can barely see it at all and then Supergirl's hand is clenching, closing into a fist, and she punches Astra in the face.

It makes a very... _solid_ sound. There's really no other word for it: it's solid, it makes the walls tremble for the umpteenth time, Cat thinks there's dust in her hair and grimaces disgustedly at the thought. Beneath the solidity of the noise is a sort of cracking and Astra's head makes a noticeable dent in the wall behind her as she's punched.

Supergirl's arm releases from her throat and Astra crumples, unconscious.

Not a second passes until Supergirl has her in her arms, very suddenly and so quickly that it makes Cat's head spin—she's a little more than unwilling to play the part of the damsel in distress, but she's so startled by the suddenness of being picked up by Supergirl that she curls an arm around the back of her neck, afraid of tumbling out of her arms and straight to the ground.

It's a stupid thought. Supergirl wouldn't let her fall.

Cat closes her eyes as the world becomes an actual blur around her, and when she opens them again they're both in front of CatCo's balcony, and Supergirl is lowering them both gently to the ground. When her feet plant themselves on the floor, her knees buckle, legs weak underneath her. She'll warn Supergirl never to mention it later, not once, not in passing, not on her _deathbed,_ but she absolutely clings to Supergirl, fingers clasping tightly around her shoulder and the other hand gripping onto the edge of her cape.

Supergirl is a sturdy constant, of course, and winds an arm around her waist until she can stand on her own, smiling gently down at her when she straightens. “Are you alright, Miss Grant?” she asks softly, and it's always that. Always _Miss Grant._ She likes it, really, if she's being honest, but she's certainly not going to _admit_ that.

“I'm fine,” Cat responds, instinctively. She is—she's not dead or severely wounded, she's just very tired. And a lot warmer for getting out of that place, which she's significantly grateful for.

“I'm glad,” Supergirl murmurs quietly, and then brushes a very soft kiss over her cheek like kissing her any harder would crush her skull. It's a ridiculous thought, and a little morbid, but Cat figures that Supergirl probably would be capable of it if she tried hard enough.

“Thank you,” Cat says, “For... _ugh,_ rescuing me, I suppose.”

Supergirl's mouth twitches at the corners, and a little huff of a laugh escapes. “You're welcome, Miss Grant. I'm just sorry I couldn't get there sooner.” She does sound and look very guilty, Cat realizes after a moment, a pause.

Cat rolls her eyes. “It hardly matters when you got there, just as long as you did eventually. And there was no grotesque torturing involved, so I'm fine, get that look off your face.” The guilt remains, so Cat kisses her, instead of telling her to go get her a burger in seven seconds flat. And afterwards, she steps back and asks, “What did she say to you?”

Supergirl glances at her, blinking. Her head tilts a little. Complete lack of understanding. Cat almost rolls her eyes again but decides that if she rolls them any more they'll ultimately end up rolling right out of her head in the midst of her complete exasperation. “What?”

“Aster,” Cat elaborates impatiently, “What did she say to you?”

Supergirl shifts her weight, and then a burst of genuine albeit slightly nervous laughter escapes her mouth. “Did you call her that to her face?”

“Yes, once,” Cat responds, “What did she say to you?”

Supergirl glances away. “...Nothing.”

“I heard it. It wasn't _nothing._ ” Supergirl is silent, so Cat sighs impatiently and turns towards the door leading into her office, pushing it open. “If you don't want to tell me, just say so, don't just ignore me. Tell me and the matter will be dropped.”

There's no response, so she steps into her office and freezes when Supergirl calls after her, sudden and quick, like she's hoping Cat somehow won't catch her words, “She said that I was weak, that...that you were my weakness. Or...or the cause of it.”

Cat turns, slowly. Supergirl is not telling her all of it—she knows that much. She's leaving out some essential part of the conversation that Cat had missed back in that room, but she doesn't pry further. For now, at least. “Am I?”

Supergirl shakes her head hurriedly. “No! You're my strength.”

Cat blinks. Oh. That had been...well... _sweet._ Sweet was one word for it. Something inside of her warms, like she's sitting by a fireplace. “Good,” she says. “Not that you don't have enough of it without me.”

Supergirl catches her wrist, closing the distance between them in normal speed. “I don't want—“ She pauses, swallows, tries again, “I do not want to be without you.”

Cat glances at her sidelong, letting a brow arch. “Did I say you were going to be?”

Supergirl ducks her head, lets go. Blushes a little. It's stupidly endearing.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” Cat says, a dismissal.

“Of course, Miss Grant. Goodnight.” Supergirl reaches out again, holds her hand for a brief moment. Squeezes, once, very lightly. And then lets go, and then she's bounding across the balcony, over the wall that separates the balcony from the rest of National City, and then she's falling—and then she's rising, and flying off.

Cat lingers there, and watches her go.


End file.
